Milky Way Novel

The End of the Milky Way

Adult Contemporary Fiction
A Work in Progress
By Melissa F. Kaelin

Throwing her future into question, Sierra journeys to “The End of the Milky Way” to decode a message left by her father. What Sierra finds on the Pacific shoreline–and the people she encounters in between–could change her life forever.

Raised on the rocky shores of Lake Superior, one hundred miles north of Duluth, Minnesota, Sierra Welsh has always loved the night sky. She was born to a chemist – her mother – and an astrophysicist, after her father devoted his life to studying Deep Space and the Milky Way.

Trying to follow in her family’s technical footsteps, Sierra chose to study a practical major in college herself. She is currently a junior at St. Olaf College in the little town of Northfield, Minnesota, pursuing a degree in statistics. But what she really wants out of life happens on the fringes, when Sierra moonlights in an artsy storefront on the edge of town. She keeps her indulgence hidden, knowing that her family and friends would not approve and fearing that she might let down her father, who had always dreamed she would grow up to be a commanding female presence in the male-dominated world of science and mathematics.

When Sierra finds a slip of paper at her late father’s lodge getaway, everything she knows about her family comes into question. Not only did her father conceal a whimsical identity while he was alive, but he also hid a family secret in a majestic location, where only Sierra could find it. Now, Sierra must connect the dots, as she follows her father’s footsteps across the country, to a little known cabin in a forested cove on the West Coast.

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A Still Life Watercolor

Opening Not every yard has a garden, Neatly mulched, lined in stone, Sprinkled with seeds And sprouting roses. Where you’ll find gardens, You may find a peace bloom. It’s tall and it’s orange and it’s — Late to blossom. Revealed under the goddess of dawn, It draws inward at dusk, Until caught in the frost, […]